Wow

Wow, where to even begin. WoW. What a weekend. I had a bit of a draining week, so I was already tired for the weekend. However, my weekend proved to be most rejuvenating and wonderful. (beware: this is a long entry; I'll be impressed by those who read it all. wow)

Teacher Retreat
was wow. Kim MSN rocked my world with Ezekiel. I learned that I will be held responsible for my girls. I basically feel more confident rebuking the girls and letting them know when I think they're doing something they shouldn't be doing. On Saturday, we heard a sermon from Erwin McManus. He spoke about one's wholeness. This part resonated with me because an ongoing joke-mostly-truth comment from my closest friends is that I'm always trying to fix people. He said that people who have been loved know how to love and people who love know how to be loved. The more one has been forgived, the more one can love. Therefore, we need to continuously live a life of gratitude. I truly felt that way on the way to Fullerton today.

I was just thinking and meditating on the love passage; I felt grateful that God is love. The teacher retreat encouraged me to persistently strive to shape my character to be more like Jesus. God offers us his character; we were made in His image. How crazy is that?! God's grace. Every time I fixate all my thoughts and emotions on God's grace, I am left in awe. All the walls I build around myself come down, each layer of my self comes off and I am left completely bare... down to the core. And in this moment, nothing matters except that I am God's daughter and I am overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude. It fills me, overflows out of me.

Ok, back to the update...

Sunday
The high school teachers were late to service. I felt bad for that. But, we were late because we were praying. It was nice. I don't think I've ever really prayed like that before with the high school teachers. Bible study went well. I told/warned them about what I learned at the Teacher Retreat, that I was going to do anything/everything to make sure they are becoming more like Jesus. They were sort of scared, but they said they felt that it was a good thing. It's also a way to keep me accountable as well; I can't necessarily rebuke them if I'm not living a Jesus-centered life.

We're going through the Old Testament right now. Sunday's bible study was about Exodus, covenants and the commandments. We learned that obeying God is a way for us to express our love towards him. We went through the Ten Commandments and further discussed the ones we need to work on. We each made a commitment to obey God in a specific way this week: a couple of girls want to honor their parents more, be patient with siblings, one wants to spend more time with God. I thought about the first commandment: have no other gods before God. I analyzed how I spend my time. I realized that I've been spending a lot of time with the ipod; therefore...

I'm fasting my ipod this week. Right after I hesitantly said this, Eric (who happened to be sitting nearby, overheard what I said) looked over, gave me a bewildered look and exclaimed, "Are you crazy?!"

This turned out to be a good thing Sunday night though. I think ever since I got the ipod, my mommy and I didn't talk that much during car drives anymore. But on Sunday, we had a wonderful talk on the way home. We discussed what we've been learning, where we're reading the Bible and our futures. The last topic was perhaps the most exciting for me. As far back as I can remember, we always only discussed my future. But it was so rad to discuss my mommy's future. My mommy has had a spiritual awakening the past few months, so it's just really neat to see how she's growing and changing spiritually. She really feels like she needs to go out into the world and live for Christ, sharing the gospel. So we discussed some possible options for her. (I suppose I can share more about this with those who really want to know. Just ask me.)

I'm excited for this week. I have lunch dates with three of my girls this week. It's awesome having seniors; they all get out of school at 12:30. My first date is with Susan tomorrow. :)

The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.